E-governance is the focus of both this and the next
issue of the Bulletin.
Guest editor Allison Brueckner
has commissioned six articles, three of which appear here. They
provide a sample of different kinds of writing in this field.
Eric Frederick reviews e-governance in a particular state.
Charles Kaylor considers the challenges facing managers and
developers of e-governance sites as technology evolves, while
Tom Brinckís case study of building a large-state portal
provides an information architecture (IA) perspective on the
topic.

Because
this issue is going to press well before the Annual Meeting,
coverage of that event must be deferred to February/March 2005.
However, incoming President Nick Belkin now takes over the
Presidentís Page and provides an update on many issues
important to our members. Julian Warner, ASIS&Tís
officially designated international liaison, supplements
Nickís view as he describes recent activities and challenges
in our international activities. In his IA column Andrew Dillon
contemplates the question of whether faster is necessarily
better.

Finally,
we carry a practitioner-oriented paper submitted to the SIG/III
contest in 2003, a companion piece to the article on library
portals and services that appeared in the last issue. In this
article Russell J. Swit considers the role of an environmental
information resource center in Namibia.